


Clarity

by Severina



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-09
Updated: 2014-03-09
Packaged: 2018-01-15 03:56:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1290406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beth needs her, and she needs to keep Beth safe. Her sister is here, and for brief moments now she can forget that Glenn is not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clarity

**Author's Note:**

> Post Episode 412 ("Still"). Maggie POV. Written super fast this morning because it was eating my brain.
> 
> * * *

Maggie's almost sure it's a hallucination, the flicker of golden hair in the trees. But then Beth squeals and dashes forward out of the brush, eats up the distance between them and collides into her, and she is warm and solid, whole. Grimy and beautiful and alive after so many weeks apart. 

She doesn't want to let her sister go, but she grudgingly releases her when Beth pulls away, searches past Bob and Sasha before turning back to her. Strong fingers grip her biceps. "Glenn?" she asks.

Maggie can only give her head a curt shake, the happy tears threatening to spill over into something darker. Then Beth is folding into her again, smoothing fingers through her hair. 

"We'll find him," Beth says. From Beth's lips it almost sounds like a prayer, a wish said aloud to make it come true.

"I know," Maggie lies. It's the lie she tells every day upon waking, every night when she curls sleepless in the dark. She kisses her sister on the forehead, grit staining her lips. Swipes at her eyes before reluctantly moving away from the reassuring thump of Beth's heart against her chest. 

Daryl sees her coming so he doesn't flinch away, even lets Maggie rest a cheek on his chest and wrap arms around his waist. 

"Thank you for keeping her safe," she says solemnly.

"Kept her own self safe," Daryl says. His voice is a rumble against her ear, and though his arms don't encircle her there's no skittish flutter to the heartbeat beneath her cheek. "Don't gotta worry none about Beth."

Maggie smiles weakly at him when she pulls away, hugs Beth to her again. She will always worry about Beth, who trusts quickly, who always thinks the best of others. Beth, who was not made for this world. Maggie can't stop reaching out to touch her as they walk, clasping her hand, reaching out to smooth a long lock of dirty hair behind her ear. Can't stop looking at her, afraid that if she glances away even for a second the scene will vanish in a puff of smoke and she'll blink awake wretched and cold and still bereft of her family. 

When Beth smiles up at her and rolls her eyes, she even manages to grin back. She needs to concentrate on Beth now. Beth needs her, and she needs to keep Beth safe. Her sister is here, and for brief moments now she can forget that Glenn is not.

 

The cabin is just two small rooms, but it backs onto a ravine with a small brook at its base and the rudimentary warning system they've strung with cans and hubcaps has done them in good stead. Maggie directs Beth and Daryl to the stream, has to force herself from following in her sister's footsteps to make sure nothing happens to her on the way there. She digs her nails into her palms and makes herself stop after a half dozen quick steps. 

Dinner is canned chili and a squirrel that Daryl nabs on the way back, and Maggie eats to keep her strength up. Eats so that she can search further afield the next day. Eats so that Bob and Sasha don't nag her. Eats so that the white roar in her head doesn't swallow her whole. 

When Bob and Sasha leave to patrol the perimeter, Maggie puts her half-eaten dinner aside and rests her head on her bent knees. There is catching up to do, stories to share, but for now she just wants to watch Beth eat. She'd forgotten the way Beth slowly picks the strips of meat off the bone before popping them in her mouth, as if roasted squirrel is a delicacy to be savoured. She'd forgotten the way Beth wipes her fingertips on her jeans after every pass at the meal, sweet fastidious Beth who used to wipe her mouth with her napkin after every bite at the kitchen table. She shouldn't forget these things, and it makes her wonder what she's forgotten about Glenn, what little moments that she should be carrying in her heart are lost forever and she doesn't even know it. 

Maggie closes her eyes, listens to the songs of the birds and the scrape of Daryl's spoon in his bowl. She doesn't know how long she sits, curled in upon herself and still aching – and how can she still be aching when her sister is found, her beautiful baby sister here with her again, she should be rejoicing, she should be thanking God -- before Beth suddenly speaks.

"I've never… gone rock-climbing," Beth says.

Maggie hears Daryl grunt, blinks open her eyes to see him nod toward the bottle of water.

"Really?" Beth says. "That's surprising. It seems like a very Daryl thing to do. All he-man and stuff." She smiles at him when she teases, open and wide, until he smirks and gestures again toward the water. She shrugs and takes a sip, looks up at him expectantly. 

"I've never had a cherry coke," Daryl says.

"Everyone's had cherry coke!" 

"Everyone don't include me," Daryl says. "Drink up, girl."

Maggie frowns, shifts her cheek on her worn jeans as Beth takes another ladylike sip from the water bottle. She remembers the game from her college days – remembers it always ending badly, too – but this has the feel of something warm and comfortable between them. Something with history. Maggie's too busy puzzling it out to catch what Beth says next, but she watches as Beth hands the bottle over, as Daryl takes his own cautious sip from the container.

"I've never gone dancin'," Daryl says smugly.

"School dances?"

"Nope."

Beth lifts a shoulder, and in the fading sunlight Maggie can barely make out how she narrows her eyes at him. "Do you even know how to dance?"

"You gonna drink up or what?"

"You don't!" Beth says. She wipes her hands on her jeans, rises and tugs on Daryl's arm. "C'mon. I'm gonna fix that right now."

Maggie expects Daryl to pull back – and he does, briefly – but then he's letting her tiny slip of a sister haul him to his feet, hustle him into the centre of the little clearing. He's letting Beth take his hand, direct him into a shuffling awkward two-step. He's making noises that mean _stop_ even as he continues to follow her lead. 

She's been so focused on worrying about Glenn, wondering about Glenn. Being wracked with guilt that, after the initial excitement of finding Beth, she's not been wrapped up in joy at her return. She realizes now that the world has moved on. She's fairly certain Beth and Daryl have forgotten that she even still sits at the edge of the clearing.

 

Bob snores. Sasha nudges him, and he turns over onto his side, mumbles something under his breath. It's the soundtrack to Maggie's evening, one that plays itself out wherever they find themselves. 

She shakes herself loose of the blankets, perches on the wooden chair by the window and rests her elbow on the ledge, her cheek on her palm. She tries to clear her mind of everything, to concentrate only on the fine rain coming down outside, the breeze blowing it through the missing panes to coat her cheek and hair in a fine mist. But she still hears Beth rouse from her own pallet on the floor some minutes later, tiptoe to the door and sneak outside. Her sister's footsteps are light on the stairs, and she trips down to the clearing, stops to turn a slow circle with her head cocked, with her hand resting lightly on the knife strapped to her hip. Daryl's knife, Maggie now notices. Then she simply stands in the rain, tips her head back and lets it bathe her face. 

"Gonna catch your death," Daryl says quietly from the shadows of the porch. 

Beth turns in place, the tiny slivers of moonlight catching on her hair, on the glint of her belt buckle. "It's beautiful," she says.

Daryl snorts softly. "Ain't gonna say that when you're hackin' up a damn lung next week."

"You worry too much," Beth says. She uses both her hands to swipe her wet hair back from her face, smiles up at the shadows. "I've never danced in the rain," she says.

"Ain't playin' a game," Daryl says after a long pause, just when Maggie thinks he's not going to respond at all. 

"I know," Beth says. 

Maggie draws in a breath, the only sound beyond the patter of raindrops on the warped wood of the verandah. It seems to her that the world itself pauses, teeters on a precipice. She sits up straighter, scans the darkness of the woods for approaching walkers, listens for the snarl in the underbrush that will break this spell.

It comes in the form of a crash of thunder, a brilliant flash of lightning bathing the yard in sudden brightness. It catches Daryl just as he reaches the bottom of the stairs, leans his crossbow against the stoop before crossing to her sister in the long grass. He holds out a hand, but this time Beth moves his hands to her hips, twines her own around his neck. Sways slowly to music that only she can hear. 

The rain comes down harder now, faster, and the moon dips out from behind the clouds. In the sudden clarity of the clearing Maggie can see the raindrops glistening on Beth's cheeks, sparkling like diamonds on her lashes. She can see the way the corners of Beth's mouth are turned up in a small, knowing smile; the way she looks patiently, calmly into Daryl's eyes.

It comes to her suddenly that Beth isn't a child anymore. That maybe she doesn't need her big sister to hold her hand, to tuck her hair back, to guide her to the stream and make sure nothing creeps up on her in the brush. That maybe Beth is doing just fine in this new world. 

When Daryl ducks his head and touches his lips to Beth's, Maggie finds that she isn't surprised at all.

Maggie pulls herself up from the chair, snakes a hand through her hair. Roots around in her knapsack for some jerky before she lies back down on the lumpy sofa. She needs food, and she needs rest. They have a tracker in their midst now, and two more sets of capable hands. Tomorrow she's going to find Glenn.

This time, it isn't a lie.


End file.
